The trade surplus that Trump never mentions

[dalton99a]

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/4/4/the-trade-surplus-that-trump-never-mentions

The trade surplus that Trump never mentions
US has a trade surplus from export of services which are now vulnerable to tariffs from the world.
By Megha Bahree
Published On 4 Apr 2025

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Services make up about 70 percent of the US economy. That includes a wide range of businesses, including education, healthcare, travel and hotels, financial services, as well as media and entertainment, insurance, maintenance and repair, and charging for the use of intellectual property, among others.

Exports of these services contribute approximately 25 percent of the US economy, economists say.

“The US has a strong comparative advantage in several major service industries: education, health, finance, law, accounting, entertainment. That explains the trade surplus,” said Gary Huffbauer, nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

In 2023, the US exported services worth $1.02 trillion, up 8 percent from a year earlier, and imported services for $748.2bn, up 5 percent. That left it with a trade surplus of $278bn, a trend stretching back at least two decades.

Foreign countries can deny operating permits for US business firms and can tax digital services, Hufbauer said. They can also temporarily suspend copyright, trademark and patent rights or prohibit the payment of royalties.

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[Johnny2X2X]

1. It's insanity

We are a service economy now, have been for some time. And you know what? Those service jobs are the good jobs we want to keep. We need more of those jobs, we don't need more low paying factory jobs. And the factory jobs will all be low paying if the GOP has their way.

[dalton99a]

2. +1. American will lose high-paying jobs when other countries boycott their services